Israel carries out strikes in Gaza

Jun. 30, 2014
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A Jewish tourist from Germany covers her face as she walks in a paint factory damaged by Saturday's rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip, in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, Sunday. / Tsafrir Abayov AP

by Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

by Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

Israel carried out an intense series of airstrikes in Gaza Tuesday, not long after the country's leaders said they would launch invade the Gaza Strip if needed to halt renewed rocket fire from an area controlled by Hamas.

Israel said it struck 34 targets across the coastal territory controlled by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic terror group, The Israeli military said the strikes were in response to a hail of 18 rockets fired into Israel since last Sunday.

"The IDF will continue to act in order to restore the peaceful living to the civilians of the state of Israel," said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman." The Hamas terror organization and its extensions are solely responsible for any terror activities emanating from the Gaza Strip."

There were no further details on the targets, but in recent weeks Israel has repeatedly targeted launch sites and weapons storage areas in similar attacks. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The attacks came after Monday's warnings by Isreali leaders that they would invade the

Gaza Strip if necessary to stop renewed rocket fire from the coastal area controlled by Hamas.

The comments came shortly before Israel's cabinet held an emergency meeting on three Israeli teens missing since June 12. ABC News and Al Jazeera reported that the bodies of have been found near the West Bank city of Hebron.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told members of his security cabinet that either Hamas will end the rocket fire from Gaza or Israeli forces will do so, like they did in 2012, in a mini-war that Israel dubbed Operation Pillar of Defense.

"I say in the clearest way possible, if the quiet that was achieved after Operation Pillar of Defense will be breached and the firing continues, there are two options - either Hamas will stop it, or we will stop it," Netanyahu said, according to Israeli TV station Arutz Sheva. "We will not allow the continuation of this (rocket) firing."

The 2012 operation involved eight days of Israeli air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza and was intended to stop rocket fire on communities in southern Israel. It ended before a threatened invasion with a truce brokered by Egypt. Sporadic rocket fire from Gaza continued, but the majority of those attacks were claimed by terrorist factions other than Hamas, Arutz Sheva reported.

Tensions have been high between Israel and Hamas since the kidnapping 18 days ago of three Israeli teens in the West bank, which Israel has blamed on Hamas. The kidnapping came 10 days after Palestinian leaders formed a unity government with Hamas and the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a union strongly opposed by Israel.

The teens, Gilad Shaar, 16; Naftali Frenkel, 16; and Eyal Yifrach, 19, were last seen hitchhiking near Gush Etzion, an Israeli town in the West Bank. An Israeli security forces searching for them have raided more than a 1,000 homes and rounded up hundreds of Palestinians, including senior Hamas leaders in the West Bank, and prisoners recently released to advance U.S.-brokered peace talks that later failed. Five Palestinians have died in clashes over the rescue operation.

Since June 27, militants fired at least 30 rockets and mortar shells at southern Israel, including four intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, according to AFP. The Israeli air force has struck back killing three Palestinians.

At least 15 rockets were fired at Israel Sunday night after Israel launched air strikes against a suspected Hamas rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip Saturday and Sunday, killing a member of the Hamas military wing, according to the militant group. Rockets fired from the Palestinian territory into Israel damaged a home and set a fire Saturday in a plastics factory in the Israeli town of Sderot, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Reserve Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former National Security Advisor in Israel, told Israeli radio Reshet Bet that a ground action is likely in the coming days if the situation doesn't calm down.

"I estimate that there will be an Israeli action, or at least there will be a call for an Israeli action that is much more massive â?? like Operation Pillar of Defense maybe even bigger than it, in order to achieve a renewed deterrence for another period of a year or two," Eiland said.